below: After the rain the leaves lie stuck to the path and tangled up in the grass.

below: Or stuck in the fence

below: You can’t escape the cranes…..

below: … or the hoardings.

below: Magnus and Angel are missing…. Is this a coincidence?

below: Pink flowers and a purple door.

below: Built in 1892, this building was once the Church of the Messiah Rectory. The church is the next building to the right (with the slightly yellow stones)

below: Faded flower of a different kind

below: Building behind the Rosedale Diner, as seen from Crown Lane

below: Locked door

below: Graffiti on private property.

below: The limestone Summerhill LCBO store which was originally the North Toronto Canadian Pacific train station. The clock tower is 43m high.

below: From a different angle, the station when it was first built in 1916. The tracks are still there but only freight trains pass by these days. It only lasted as a passenger station until September 1930. Back in the day if you wanted to take a train to Lindsay or Bobcaygeon, this is where you’d go although you could also get a train to Ottawa (via Peterborough & Smith’s Falls) or Montreal.

below: No stop ahead

below: “Help negro and white people mass (?) produce painted stones and hide them” plus a lot of other lines and shapes that might be letters or words.

below: I also came across this box yesterday – Sam the Chinese Food Man and other signs.

below: I have vague memories of such a Sam’s restaurant so I went online to find out more about it. What I found is this image in a “Lost Toronto” blogpost. It is Yonge Street just south of Gerrard (the Rio Theatre was 373 Yonge Street). Did you know that Toronto once had a wax museum?

While walking on Yonge Street on the day of the Pride Parade, I noticed that the St. Charles tavern clock tower was visible once more. Also on that day, I heard someone ask the person beside them what the tower was. The answer was something like, “I don’t know what it is but it looks interesting.” I went back this weekend to take some pictures – not quite so many people in the way!

below: The St. Charles as it was back in the 1950’s. It was built by Charles Hemstead who had made his money in real estate and horse breeding. Hemstead sold it in 1958 but it continued as the St. Charles until 1987.

photo credit: 1955. Photo by James Salmon, originally found at Toronto Public Library. I found it online at Toronto.com in an excellent article about the history of the building and its role in the LGBQT community.

I have always associated the tower with the St. Charles Tavern but I now know that the tower pre-dates the St. Charles by many decades. It was built as part of Fire Hall Number 3 in the 1870s. Although the fire hall is long gone (it was replaced by the fire hall on Grosvenor Street in the 1920’s), the clock tower has survived several changes of ownership. It is also going to survive the next change which, of course, is the building of a large glass and steel condo on the southwest corner of Yonge & Grosvenor.

below: The site has been cleared. Looking south from Grosvenor.

below: Looking north up Yonge Street towards Grosvenor. The yellow scaffolding is holding up the brick facade of 480 and 482 Yonge Street. It too will be incorporated into the new development. Can you count how many new condos there are? Did you notice that the two clock faces say different times?

The clock kept time until 1969. It had been maintained by the city up until then. Repairs and upkeep stopped when the city decided that the cost was too much. Maybe it will function once again in the near future.

The other day I discovered that there is a small gallery on the 3rd floor of Ryerson’s School of Image Arts. If you want to find it too, it’s in a building that it’s in is attached at the ground floor level to the Ryerson Image Centre on Gould Street. At the moment, there is a small exhibit of photos by Avard Woolaver.

below: The photos are ones that Woolaver took in Toronto in the late 70s and early 80s.

below: This photo is one of Woolaver’s – it is looking towards the northwest corner of Spadina and Queen Street West. For those of us who lived in Toronto at the time, it’s a bit of nostalgia. Somethings are very familiar – the older TTC buses, the car styles, and a lot of the architecture, for example. This photo in particular lends itself nicely to the game of ‘Spot the Differences’….. compare this with

below: …..this. Here is the same intersection, at a similar angle, last week. The large brick building is still there but without a billboard. The poles are no longer wood but they are covered in posters and remnants of posters – so no change there. The street signs have been updated and there is now a streetcar lane in the middle. All in all, I was surprised how little had actually changed in 30ish years.

below: I found this photo online (originally from the Toronto City Archives, 1950?) but before we can play another round of ‘Spot the Differences’, we have to identify these buildings? Any ideas?

below: Here is the same location in the 1980’s (not a photo from the exhibit). Not too many changes. The building that housed George Richards Men’s shop, 361 Yonge Street, was replaced by a dull and boring two storey brick building but the other changes were just to the facades and the owners/tenants. The tavern is still a tavern and the drug store is still a drug store. The large brown building on the top right that you can only see part of is Ryerson College. Unfortunately the Wrigleys ghost sign on the taller building on the left has been covered.

below: Fast forward another 30 years. The Zanzibar is all bright lights and dazzle while the building that housed the drug store is now for sale. Ryerson is now a University and has expanded out to Yonge Street – that’s the large blue building in case you are not familiar with the area.

below: If you pull back a bit, and look just a bit farther north on that stretch of Yonge Street, you’ll see that there are many empty buildings

below: … including what was until recently the XTC clothing company. It looks like it has gone through a number of ‘renovations’, not all of which were good. Some traces of its original brick facade can be seen at the top but at street level it is (was?) a mess.

There is a plan to build a 98 storey mixed-use building on this site including just over 900 residential units ranging in size from 520 to 2000 square feet. It will be the tallest residential building in Canada. In the promotional material for YSL Residences, as they will be called, is this: “The epitome of luxury living, designed to elevate the fortunate few who will call it home.”

below: Back to Ryerson, also on the 3rd floor of the School of Image Arts, there was a small series of photographs like this one hanging on the wall in the hallway. There was no sign as to the name of the artist that I could find either on the wall or online. I quite like the technique and the resulting image. Two ideas melded into one. Two time frames in one frame. Two artistic styles combined to create another.

If you are interested in Woolaver’s work, you can find more on his blog.

Once again, the last Sunday of the month was Pedestrian Sunday in Kensington Market. There was a large turnout this past weekend! Lots of people, music, food, sunshine, and good times.

below: Dancing in the steet

below: A song, a mandolin, and a Polish Boy Scout belt buckle?

below: She is showing lots of courage!

below: A quiet corner for a good book

below: Numbers on the alley by #whatsvictorupto

below: Drinks – the changing nature of Kensington market is reflected in the food and drink that is available. There is now a large South American influence in the area so products like Inca Cola and Chicha can be bought.

below: A poser bunny still lurks in an alley. Everything around him as changed be he remains.

If you go looking for Henry Moore at the corner of Dundas and McCaul, you will be disappointed.

Instead, you have to walk around the corner.

After residing at the corner of Dundas and McCaul since 1974, Henry Moore’s sculpture “Large Two Forms” was moved to the newly renovated Grange Park on the 3rd of June. Grange Park is behind the Art Gallery of Ontario as well as OCADU (Ontario College of Art and Design University).

The new setting suits the sculpture. There is more room for people to interact with the sculpture and the park makes a more picturesque background for those who like to take photos.

I’d be interested in knowing if the AGO has any plans for the now empty corner at Dundas and McCaul. Was the construction pictured above just to remove the platform that the sculpture used to be on? Or is there more to it than that?

Also, I don’t mean to spoil your fun, but how long will it be until a “do not climb” sign appears in Grange Park? I’m not advocating for one – I just know how the city acts on things like this. Part of me says, “Quick, get your selfie from on top of the sculpture while you can!”

A little extra that I discovered this morning. As I wrote this blog post I kept thinking about “Down By the Henry Moore”, a song from my past. All I could recall was the title. I found a great version of it on youtube – the song was written and sung by Murray McLauchlan and was released in 1974. The Henry Moore referred to in the song is the one in front of City Hall but the video on youtube has some fabulous old picture of Toronto! Many thanks to john allore who made the video and uploaded it to youtube. I really enjoyed seeing the old images, down memory lane and all that. If you are interested, this is the link; it will open youtube in a new page. You may have to suffer through a few seconds of ads and you have my apologies for that.